Fresh titles dominate this year’s slate of just-announced finalists for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction.
This year’s five finalists – first published between 1932 and 2003 – include novels by James Blish (The Star Dwellers), C.S. Lewis (That Hideous Strength), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), Adam Roberts (Salt) and Charles Stross (Singularity Sky).
Blish and Roberts are first-time Hall of Fame nominees, while this is the first time that Huxley’s classic dystopian novel has been recognized as a finalist.
Blish, a Hugo-winning author widely admired in the 1950s and 1960s during the peak of the so-called Golden Age of modern sf, has never before been nominated for the Prometheus Award – perhaps in retrospect a major omission that at last has been corrected.
Although Huxley’s classic dystopian novel was nominated during the first decade of our awards in the 1980s, this is the first nomination for Brave New World in roughly four decades.
Meanwhile, Charles Stross’s Singularity Sky, first nominated last year, has been recognized as a Hall of Fame finalist for its second consecutive year.
And C.S. Lewis has been nominated more than a dozen times for That Hideous Strength, perhaps his most libertarian novel. It’s been ranked several times as a Hall of Fame finalist, most recently in 2023.
THE SUCCESS OF THE BRITISH
An interesting coincidence: British authors dominate the line-up this year, with Blish, an American, the only exception.
Furthermore, even long after their passing, Huxley and Lewis rank among the most influential and bestselling writers of the 20th century.
Meanwhile, happily, Roberts and Stross are alive, thriving and prolific authors still in mid-career. Stross, a past Prometheus Best Novel winner (for Glasshouse in 2007), has been nominated several times for our award. Roberts was nominated for the first time in 2022 for a Prometheus award in the Best Novel category for Purgatory Mount.
CAPSULE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FINALISTS
Here are capsule descriptions of each work, listed in alphabetical order by author:
The Star Dwellers, a 1961 novel (Faber and Faber; Avon Books) by James Blish, revolves around a fraught potential conflict between humans and an ancient species of angelic energy beings born inside stars.
A young space cadet serving on a small scout starship finds himself alone and at the center of a pivotal moment, prompting him to forge a friendship with one of the youngest Angels. Their efforts at communication and bargaining result in a “deal” that opens the door to wider negotiations toward a historic treaty of cooperation and peaceful co-existence.
Powerfully but simply dramatizing how voluntary exchanges and free trade benefit both parties, Blish’s idealistic “SF juvenile” novel illuminates the virtues of consent, contract – two of the most fundamental ideas at the foundation of both libertarianism and classical liberalism – as the civilized alternatives to conflict and war.
Brave New World, a 1932 novel (Chatto & Windus) by Aldous Huxley, is a dystopian classic offering a still-timely cautionary tale of collectivist “soft tyranny” under seemingly benevolent world government and technocratic central planning.
Critiquing his era’s rise of collectivism and Progressive infatuation with the racist pseudo-science of eugenics, Huxley warned about behavioral/biochemical conditioning, propaganda, censorship and manipulation of artificial wombs limiting intelligence and initiative to create and control different castes.
At a time when the intellectual and artistic elite saw most forms of authoritarian collectivism as the inevitable and positive wave of the future, Huxley foresaw the dark side of utopia. The novel explicitly dramatizes how such trends deny individuality, liberty, reason, passion, romantic love, the family, history, literature (including Shakespeare, which inspired the novel’s title) and other vital things that enrich distinctly human life.
That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel (Scribner) by C.S. Lewis, is the climax of the Christian libertarian’s Space Trilogy. Set mostly on Earth and in heavenly realms, Lewis’ dystopian and metaphysical vision dramatizes warring ideologies of good and evil, freedom and tyranny.
The story revolves around a sociologist and his wife who discover a totalitarian conspiracy and diabolical powers scheming to control humanity in the guise of a progressive-left, Nazi-like organization working for a centrally planned pseudo-scientific society literally hell-bent to seize power.
Evoking a police state in the takeover of a local village and warning about the dangers of bureaucracy, Lewis seems most prophetic today in his cautions about the therapeutic state and rising ideology of scientism (science not as the value-free pursuit of truth, but as elitist justification for social control).
Salt, a 2000 novel (Gallancz Limited) by Adam Roberts, dramatizes misunderstandings and growing conflicts between an anarchist community and its statist neighbor.
Set on a harsh desert-like colony world, Robert’s impressive first novel contrasts radically different conceptions of liberty. Evoking Ursula K. Le Guin’s Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed in its depiction of alternative dystopian/utopian societies, Roberts’ cautionary science fiction story underscores how pro-freedom rhetoric can rationalize transgressions and how skewed ideals and good intentions can lead people astray.
Told in alternating chapters by the two society’s biased leaders, this libertarian tragedy poignantly reveals how cross-cultural misunderstandings, despite mostly good intentions, can spark the horrors of war.
Although each society is flawed and falls short of respecting the individual rights, self-ownership and non-aggression principles of modern libertarianism, Salt provokes fresh thinking about the true meaning of freedom.
Singularity Sky, a 2003 novel (Ace Books) by Charles Stross, dramatizes the ethics and greater efficacy of freedom in an interstellar 25th century as new technologies trigger radical transformation – strikingly beginning with advanced aliens dropping cell phones from the sky to grant any and all wishes.
Blending space opera with ingenious SF concepts (such as artificial intelligence, bioengineering, self-replicating information networks and time travel via faster-than-light starships), the kaleidoscopic saga explores the disruptive impact on humanity as various political-economic systems with varying degrees of freedom come into contact.
Stross weaves in pro-freedom and anti-war insights as an observant man and woman, representing Earth’s more libertarian culture and anarcho-capitalist economy based on private contracts, interact with a repressive and reactionary colony, its secret police and its military fleet.
The Prometheus Blog has a goal and policy of publishing full-length reviews of all Prometheus finalists. So far, reviews have been posted of The Star Dwellers, Brave New World and Singularity Sky, with reviews in the works for That Hideous Strength and Salt. So stay tuned.
THE OTHER NOMINEES
In addition to the five finalists, the Prometheus Hall of Fame Finalist Judging Committee, chaired by LFS President William H. Stoddard, considered four other nominees: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, a 1974 novel by Philip K. Dick; “The Kindly Isle,” a 1984 story by Frederik Pohl; Babylon 5, a 1994-1998 TV series created by writer-director J. Michael Strączyński; and Between the Rivers, a 1998 novel by Harry Turtledove.
As always, the Prometheus Awards are based on the works themselves, their quality, stories and themes, without consideration of the authors’ philosophies, ideologies or politics. Throughout the 46-year history of the award and more than 100 previous winners, the award has recognized works by authors who have a wide variety of personal views (not always obvious or even known) but whose talent and vision highlights themes relevant to libertarian concerns about individual rights, civil liberties, economic freedom and peace.
The final vote for this year’s finalists will take place in mid-2026. All Libertarian Futurist Society members are eligible to vote for the Prometheus Hall of Fame. The award will be presented online, via Zoom and open to the general public, most likely on a weekend afternoon in mid- to late August.
Eligible for nomination if first published, filmed, broadcast, staged or recorded at least 20 years ago, Hall of Fame nominees may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including stories or other prose fiction, stage plays, film, television, other video, graphic novels, song lyrics, or epic or narrative verse; they must explore themes relevant to libertarianism and must be science fiction, fantasy, or related fantastical and speculative genres.
THE FOCUS OF THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS
First presented in 1979 (for Best Novel) and presented annually since 1982, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of fantastical fiction that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor voluntary cooperation over legalized or criminal coercion, expose abuses and excesses of obtrusive government, critique or satirize authoritarian ideas, or champion individual rights and freedoms as the mutually respectful foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, civility, and civilization itself.
The awards include gold coins and plaques for the winners for Best Novel, Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame), and occasional Special Awards.
The Prometheus Award is one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.
HOW TO NOMINATE OR SUBMIT WORKS
Nominations for the next cycle of the Hall of Fame Award can be submitted to committee chair William H. Stoddard (halloffame@lfs.org) at any time up to Sept. 30, 2026. All LFS members are eligible to nominate, while outside publishers and authors are welcome to informally submit eligible works for consideration by LFS members and judges.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS AND THE LFS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.
